elegant mismatch
by Birisu
Summary: LoM; six drabbles for the Hero/Rachel pairing.


**A/N: **Originally posted on LiveJournal. Six drabbles; partly sequential, some reference to the Green Wiggly event.

* * *

**ELEGANT MISMATCH**

**i. run as if you had a choice**

He's about to leave the room when he hears the words.

"I want to get out of here."

It's a low murmur. Her back's to him, resplendent as her wings catch a couple of rays from a superfluous sun. And she isn't saying it to anyone - not to him, who's just a nosy stranger, not to Mark or Jennifer, busying themselves in their practical lifestyles of blissful ignorance, not to absurd Teapo, not even to herself. It's a line with no direction, words that carry nothing but force. There is vengeance there, if one bothers to listen carefully. Vengeance against the invisible bindings of the delicate pixie-girl, her tiny room, the little grotto of staged sweetness that any village girl would die for.

She's a mystery, a mystery in a petite frame, fairy wings, dainty feelers and lovable frocks.

She's _cute, _the cutest girl in Domina, but that isn't the only thing that compels him to cross the landing and hold his hand out to her.

"Then let's go."

She's still as can be, eyes wide and haunting, and suddenly he realizes he doesn't know what he's gotten himself into.

--

**ii. world end's garden**

"Oh, it _hatched,_" he deadpans.

He tries to explain, as she bends to observe the newest addition to his family. He never sells the pet eggs straightaway, no matter how full the barn is and how empty his pockets are. He enjoys watching creation in its nearest-to-purest form. He likes seeing things come anew into the world, lifting their barely-formed eyelids to take in chaos, ten-million peak points of brightness and colour. He doesn't say it all very well, of course, and he doesn't say too much because it's personal, a maternal instinct like that is personal, and because she's now recklessly lifting up the grotesque Thing for inspection. It is the ugliest thing that both of them have ever seen – the wrinkled head, the appalling eyebrows, the unabashedly-dirty orange hue, the thick, bulbous lips and the fangs…

…the newborn opens its little Cave of a Thousand Wonders and lets out the greatest Shriek ever.

The noise reverberates off the walls, the wail reminiscent of legions of banshees on desperately screeching mutant mares.

It only shuts up twenty-nine seconds later, and yet Rachel is still holding on to it.

"Oh, dear," she says. "How honest you are."

He watches as her mouth spreads slowly in something like a smile. Because Rachel never, ever smiles. Not really, anyway. No.

He can't help but stare.

**--**

**iii. unchained highway melody**

You've never liked pretty things. They ensnare you. They are used by other people to ensnare you. They stifle you, choke you, bind you into building a future on flimsy, worthless things. You cling to them until you forget how your reflection looks like. You've been made to learn the melodies, of course. Oh, the strings you have broken, the drums you have dashed. Then they give up, wash their hands of you. And still you go on hating. The pretty things.

You've studied the leaf motif in your wallpaper and the scratches in the floor. You don't miss it now – the way his fingers leap, up, down, up, down, upon the tiny holes. You've never paid attention to those hands. Broad, sturdy palm; short, knobbly fingers. So agile. They grip swords. They dig in soil, get caked in blood and covered in scars. They play flutes.

The glow approaches. You want it new and different. You want it all, _in. _But you close your eyes. You can't bear it. Pretty thing.

Coins tinkle at his feet. The Wisp disappears, and he stops playing. You don't open your eyes. You're gripping onto the last note for all it's worth.

--

**iv. fate or not-fate**

Sweep a finger through a single flame and you won't feel a thing. Leave it there for long enough and you get burnt.

Sweetly, dusky; lamps in their laps but it's not romantic. A silly, serenading centaur clops around below them, though his advances have been rejected with astounding clarity, clarity that's lacking even in someone like Monique. So he's impressed at her, but still sulky. And when sulky he doesn't feel like talking. She's the one doing the speaking now. It's ironic.

She says Lumina's not a city, because it doesn't have enough lights. And that she likes it better that way.

Lumina's one town that doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

He thinks she should visit bigger, brighter places. And there's a sudden hard light in her eyes when he tells her about Geo. Turrets and tomes. How would he know that eventually he's going to regret that?

--

**v. alternate universe**

He's seen her often. The simple, unattractive round-collared shirts – pastel - and the tattered jeans. The handful of piercings in her left ear, though she doesn't latch any glitter to each of them. She isn't making a statement with her dressing, and yet she is. She does things in halves – non-conformist, yet non-defiant. And those eyes. They aren't the eyes of someone who isn't bothered. They aren't the eyes of someone who doesn't _know. _

He approaches her, sits next to her on the low wall that overlooks the ranch. He swings his legs, asks for her name.

"My handle is the 'Green Wiggly'."

She doesn't look at him.

He swallows; girl is even stranger than he thought. He makes an effort anyway. "Then I'm the Blue Squiggly," he grins, and only when the girl finally turns her curious eyes (are you mocking me?) upon him does he realize how lame he sounds. He blushes and tries to make amends.

"'Green Wiggly'… like a caterpillar?"

"Oh?"

He bites his tongue. "It's… it's cool! Caterpillars turn into butterflies, don't they?"

She gives him a swift, hard look. "Don't give me that," she says angrily pushing herself off the wall and striding away. He trails her.

--

**vi. finality among aisles and shelves**

"I'm letting you go."

You… _don't _cry.

You aren't crying now, because you've been so pathetic these past few days that Bud and Lisa have actually been attempting to learn to _cook_, but everything tastes bad, and Lil' Cactus has been treated unfairly to more than one horrible tantrum, and oh, yes, the tears have come and gone already in your stupid tree of a house, everything is stupid now, and you've to deal with perplexed and please-help-me gazes everywhere in town and crying's not manly and you just _won't. _Not when you're on the verge of please-help-me yourself.

Because the small hand you're holding now isn't the one you're used to. Everything _isn't._ And even the eyes, those large, staring eyes that you love, are different. They say eyes are the windows to the soul. What a lie.

The sweet little frame you're familiar with, the one back at home, is but a doll. And you don't know who to love. She'll kill you. Both will. They're the same and not the same.

"The Mana Tree chose you," Rachel-who-isn't-Rachel is saying. "And I chose myself."

You don't understand her words at all. You don't think you want to.


End file.
